JOHN OF SALISBURY: English ecclesiastic, and
bishop of Chartres; b. at Salisbury between 1110
and 1120; d. at Chartres (54 m. s.w. of Paris) Oct.
25, 1180.

Life.

He was of humble Saxon origin, but
in 1136 left his native land to study in France, especially
in Paris. Among his teachers there were
the famous Abelard, Robert of Melun, and Alberic
of Reims. After studying dialectics at Paris for
two years, he went to Chartres, where
for three years he heard the lectures of
William of Conches, and later studied
under Richard l'Évèque, Hardewin the German,
Theodoric, Peter Elias, and others. He returned
to Paris and began the study of theology, his teachers
being Gilbert de la Porrée, Robert Pulleyne, and
Simon of Poissy. Despite bitter poverty, he spent
twelve years in France, passing the latter portion
of the time with his intimate friend Peter, abbot of
the Cistercian monastery of Moutier la Celle near
Troyes, through whom he became acquainted with
Bernard of Clairvaux. This powerful head of the
Cistercians brought John to the attention of Theobald,
archbishop of Canterbury, who had fled from
England to escape Stephen. When the archbishop
was able to return to his see, John was invited, in
1148 or the beginning of 1149, to act as his chancellor
or secretary. He was a firm defender of the
spiritual and secular supremacy of the pope and
of the independence of the clergy, regarding these
principles as the means of protecting mankind
against the injustice of the secular arm and the consequences
of sin. He sought to carry out his doctrine
in practical ecclesiastical life, even though
his views that only the Roman Catholic hierarchy
could unfold the blessings of Christianity aroused
the opposition of the court and of the bishops, the
latter regarding themselves as peers of the realm
rather than as subject to a distant pope. The increasing
age and infirmity of the archbishop brought
additional ecclesiastical responsibilities upon John,
while he was able to render many important political

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services to Henry II. after the death of Stephen
in 1154. Sent on repeated missions for both prelate
and king, he crossed the Alps, according to his
own statement, ten times, visiting the Curia during
the reign of Pope Eugenius III. and living for
three months at Benevento with Adrian IV., with
whom he was on terms of personal friendship. His
position became difficult, however, after the death
of Adrian in 1159, when he took sides with Alexander
III. against the antipope Victor IV. He secured
the recognition of Alexander in England, but
came in conflict with the king and the royalist
bishops as the exponent of the Roman Catholic
hierarchy. He was deprived of his preferments
and emoluments, and was even in peril of his life,
so that he contemplated flight from England,
but was rehabilitated at the petition of the pope,
the archbishop, and Thomas Becket. His power
reached its climax when the latter, his close personal
friend, succeeded Theobald as archbishop of
Canterbury in 1162. Throughout the struggle between
the archbishop and the king, John remained
the faithful friend of the former, whom he preceded
into exile in 1163. When a nominal peace
was patched up between the archbishop and Henry
in 1170, John returned to England, and, though he
was not present at the actual scene of the arch-bishop's
murder, he hastened there soon enough
to receive some of the martyr's blood as a relic. A
time of peril followed until the papal influence and
popular opinion forced the king to change his
course. John, who had fled from Canterbury, again
received his preferments, and cooperated zealously
with Richard of Dover, the successor of Thomas.
He was likewise active in the canonization of the
murdered prelate. In 1176 he was unanimously
chosen bishop of Chartres, and was consecrated in
August of the same year. There, however, he was
obliged to struggle against all manner of opposition,
although he enjoyed the support of the pope,
and in 1179 attended the third Lateran Council,
where he uttered a solemn warning against unjustifiable
innovations and urged the clergy to conform
to the Gospel.

Writings.

The most important and comprehensive work of
John of Salisbury was his Policraticus sive de nugis
curalium et vestigiis philosophorum, written in 1159
and dedicated to Thomas Becket. It is a system
of ecclesiastical and political economics
and ethics based on Christianity
and the wisdom of the ancients, and
designed to lead from the triviality of secular and
court life to a true knowledge and government of
the world. In his book the author wove from his
wealth of experience both a picture of actual life
and the ideal of true Christian living, in which the
Church should rule and lead all mankind as the
guardian and representative of divine law and
true human justice. The Policraticus, the first
great theory of the State in the Middle Ages, exercised
an influence on Thomas Aquinas and Vincent
of Beauvais. It was first edited, apparently
by the Brethren of the Common Life, at Brussels
about 1480. Immediately after the Policraticus
John wrote the Metalogicus, which may be regarded
as its continuation; this was also dedicated to
Thomas Becket. This work, which is in four books
and which was first edited at Paris in 1610, is a
presentment of true and false science, in which
the author castigates not only contempt of science,
especially of logic, but also false and sophistic
scholasticism. These aberrations of his contemporaries
were compared with the sound views of
Plato and the academic school, and especially with
Aristotle, whose Organon John of Salisbury was the
first in western Europe to know and use. His
earliest work was his Entheticus (Eutheticus, Nutheticus),
sive de dogmate philosophorum, written
about 1155, and consisting of a philosophical and
satirical poem in 928 distichs, dedicated to Thomas
Becket. The first part contains a critical presentation
of the basal concepts of the Greek and Roman
philosophers, who are unfavorably contrasted
with the higher truth of Christianity. The second
part exhorts Thomas to consider the plight of the
threatened and afflicted Church, and describes the
lamentable condition of England. The poem is
extant in only two manuscripts, and was first edited
by C. Petersen at Hamburg in 1843. John was
likewise the author of a Historia pontificalis, embracing
the years 1148-52 and written about 1165
as a supplement to the chronicle of Sigibert and his
immediate successors. The fragment begins with
the Council of Reims, which John attended, and
breaks off abruptly in the middle of a sentence discussing
the events of 1152. The only edition is
that by W. Arndt in MGH, Script., xx (1868), 515-545.

The minor works of John of Salisbury were his
Vita Sancti Anselmi, written in 1163 as a supplement
to Eadmer's larger biography of Anselm and
designed as an aid in the projected canonization of
the saint at the Council of Tours, and his Vita et
passio Sancti Thomae, composed shortly after 1170
as an argument for the canonization of Thomas
Becket. His letters, collected by him in four books,
although the present collection of 327 is contained
in two parts, are of great importance both for his
biography and for the ecclesiastical history of his
time, since they are addressed to popes (Adrian
and Alexander III.), to princes, and to many ecclesiastical
and secular potentates. The first edition
of J. Masson (Paris, 1611) contained only 302
letters, but others have since been discovered. A
number of additional works have been ascribed to
this author. Some titles may refer to treatises
now lost, while certain others may represent individual
chapters of the Policraticus. A complete
edition of the works of John of Salisbury (not without
flaws) was published by J.. A. Giles (5 vols.
PEA, Oxford, 1848) and reprinted in MPL, xcix.